Top Ten Tips for Marketing Your Business Online

Top Ten Tips for Marketing Your Business Online

Test what works for you. There isn’t really a cookie cutter solution for marketing your business. Sure, there are some things that work for lots of businesses, but things will need tweaking, testing and adjusting as you go. Be flexible, be responsive – when you try something, check it after a little while and make sure it’s working; if it’s not, change it!

Organise your accounts. Don’t just throw a bunch of stuff at the wall and see what sticks – that only works for testing whether spaghetti is cooked. Think really carefully about who you’re trying to reach and figure out where those people are. Should you be focussing on online marketing…offline…both? Who’s your customer? Just because you love Snapchat doesn’t make it a great platform for your business if your audience are 72-year-old females living in North West Scotland (or maybe it is – I don’t know any 72-year-old female in North West Scotland – they may be Snapchat crazy!).

Plan your content. Oh, the time you will save by just spending a little time planning. As the expression goes…fail to plan…plan to fail. Have a session and work out what you want to say and when. Are you a travel agent? When do people book their summer holidays? That’s when you need to reach them – by the time summer comes around, it’s too late. We all have stuff we can talk about at different times of the year, month, week – plan it now. You don’t have to know the exact wording of a Tweet going out in 8 months time…but you should be able to know the topic for that period.

Take people straight to where they need to be. If you want someone to do something (conversion), when you’re running your campaign, your Call To Action (CTA) should direct them to perform that conversion. When you’re choosing where to drive your audience as a result of an advert, take them to the place where they can actually perform that conversion. This will probably never be the homepage of your website – build landing pages, control their journey – minimise distractions and have a clear goal.

Evaluate the effectiveness of your campaigns. What does success look like to you? This is the first question I ask clients when we’re starting to set up a new campaign. In order to know whether it’s worked, I need to know what you’re trying to achieve. We can then work toward that goal, testing, checking and measuring. If we’re just going to wing it, then you’re almost certainly going to spend more than you need to on your campaign. Knowing what success looks like is a key component of a successful strategy.

Never commit more than you can afford to lose. Through planning and testing, you’re going to have a great campaign…but…there’s always the unexpected. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket – If you throw your entire year’s marketing budget on one campaign, how will you cope if it doesn’t work? Take controlled steps and you will progress with confidence and in a much stronger position.

Target your customers. Who’s your customer? Anyone? Wrong! Even if you have a business that can cater to that wide of a demographic (and there’s surprisingly few), focus on just one for your campaign. Think about who you’re writing for. Who’s the customer? What do they look like? What are they motivated by? Taking some time to create these personas will help you focus your adverts and ultimately drive more conversions.

Inspire confidence in your brand. Social proof is an incredibly powerful concept and should be utilised wherever possible. If you say your business is awesome…great. But if one of your customers thinks it’s great…well! That’s different! This is much more meaningful – it’s unbias. Think about collecting customer reviews (we collect on Google and Facebook) by asking your audience if they could take some time and help others decide if you’re the right fit for them.

Pay Per Click is a fast & effective route to your customers. Done correctly, you should see results from PPC straight away. If you follow all the advice here, your target audience will be focussed and specific. This will help to keep your Cost Per Click (CPC) low and your conversions high (spend less, reach more)

Search Engine Optimsation is something everyone can should do. Whether you’re using social, blogging or PPC to promote your brand, don’t ignore your SEO. The idea that it “can only be done by a wizard SEO professional” is simply not the case anymore. Learn the SEO fundamentals that your website needs, so when you’re creating content or writing blogs etc. you’re planning for continued success. If and when that you choose it’s time to bring in external support for this, you’ll have a great grasp of the industry and will be more empowered to have the right conversation, with the right people.

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James Lane is the Training Director for Hypestar. A Hootsuite expert, Certified Professional, Hootsuite Ambassador, Geek, Nerd & Educator (Nerducator), he is pioneering digital training solutions for businesses.Passionate about answering people's questions about digital skills and helping people by upskilling them to be able to do what they need to do themselves. He writes about social media, technology and digital skills.

Who is Hypestar?

Hypestar is one of the leading providers of digital & social media skills training. We don’t “do it for you”, we teach you how to do it yourself.

Built by a team of business owners, trainers, technical experts and experienced marketers – we are your training partner, giving you impartial advice on how to make the most from starting, growing and promoting your business.

This is your home for digital marketing, online skills & social media training; providing a range of individual, commercial and fully-funded digital skills workshops, 1:1 & e-Learning solutions by industry leaders based in the North East of England and covering the whole nation.